Culture

Recent revelations about the sledgehammering to death of what seem to be Australian cattle in Vietnam provide further evidence of the government’s inability to control how exported livestock are slaughtered overseas.

Highlights

• Two-thirds of the children with kidney disease were classified as vitamin D deficient.
• Children with kidney disease who took vitamin D supplements had vitamin D levels that were 2 times higher than those who did not take supplements.
• Certain genetic variants were also associated with vitamin D levels.

Vitamin D deficiency often elicits no symptoms, but it may increase the risk of osteoporosis, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and autoimmune disorders.

Research that followed more than 1.6 million Swedish men from adolescence onwards between 1968 and 2005 has shown that those who were overweight as teenagers were more likely to develop heart failure in early middle age.

Surprisingly, the increased risk of heart failure was found in men who were within the normal body weight range (a body mass index of 18.5 to 25) in adolescence, with an increased risk starting in those with a BMI of 20 and rising steeply to a nearly ten-fold increased risk in those who were very obese, with a BMI of 35 or over.

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Leaky blood vessels in the brain called cerebral microbleeds are associated with an increased risk of physical and cognitive disability in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a new study by researchers in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo.

The UK Government's pilot of seven-day opening of doctor surgeries has significantly reduced weekend emergency hospital visits, hospital admissions and ambulance call-outs, new University of Sussex research has found.

Spread across the whole week, Accident & Emergency visits were down 10 per cent among patients of pilot surgeries in central London. The greatest effect was seen on Saturdays and Sundays, with a drop of 18 per cent recorded across weekends.

New Haven, Conn.-- A new study by a Yale researcher may support the use of a device for patients suffering from irregular heart rhythms.

DALLAS, June 15, 2016 -- People who have had percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), also known as angioplasty, for acute coronary syndrome could be at higher risk of death, heart failure, heart attack and stroke if they have sleep-disordered breathing, such as sleep apnea, according to new research in Journal of the American Heart Association, the Open Access Journal of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Last-ditch, high-tech heroic treatments. Days in the hospital intensive care unit. You might think this is what makes dying in America so expensive - and that it's where we should focus efforts to spend the nation's healthcare dollars more wisely.

But a new study finds that for nearly half of older Americans, the pattern of high spending on healthcare was already in motion a full year before they died.

Researchers have discovered a handful of 'bright spots' among the world's embattled coral reefs, offering the promise of a radical new approach to conservation.

In one of the largest global studies of its kind, researchers conducted over 6,000 reef surveys in 46 countries across the globe, and discovered 15 'bright spots' - places where, against all the odds, there were a lot more fish on coral reefs than expected.

PHILADELPHIA - Aortic stenosis (AS), the narrowing of the aortic valve in the heart which causes restricted blood flow, is one of the most common and serious valve disease problems. For patients with one type of AS - low flow - transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), a minimally invasive procedure which corrects the damaged aortic valve, is often the best option for restoring the heart's normal pumping function.

MINNEAPOLIS - (June 15, 2016) - For many health care professionals, emphasizing quality of life over clinical outcomes is new ground. Allina Health will present three ground-breaking findings at the AcademyHealth 2016 Annual Research Meeting this month in Boston. All are based on LifeCourse, a multi-year study of a whole-person approach to late-life care.

Investors should buy paintings if they like looking at them, but not to make money, according to new research from the Luxembourg School of Finance of the University of Luxembourg, which found that returns of fine art have been significantly overestimated.

TORONTO, ON -One in every 26 men with arthritis have attempted suicide compared to one in 50 men without arthritis. Women with arthritis also had a higher prevalence of lifetime suicide attempts than women without arthritis (5.3% vs 3.2%), according to a recent study from the University of Toronto.

The study found that those with arthritis still had 46% higher odds of suicide attempts than those without arthritis even when adjustments were made for important factors such as age, income, chronic pain, and a history of mental health disorders.

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- New insights into the reproductive secrets of one of the world's tiniest and most destructive parasites - the Varroa mite - has scientists edging closer to regulating them.

"If you know your enemies better, you can come up with new ways of controlling them," said Michigan State University entomologist Zachary Huang, whose research explores the fertility of the notorious mite, a pest that is devastating honeybee populations worldwide. The mite sucks the blood of honeybees and transmits deadly viruses.

Patients who were asked where they wanted to die upon entering hospice had lower rates of hospitalization at the end of life, as did those in hospices that monitored symptoms more frequently, according to a new study led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Published online today in the July issue of the journal Medical Care, the study also determined that for-profit hospices have persistently high rates of hospitalization regardless of preferred practice implementation.